In the art of protective headgear such as helmets worn by firefighters, police and military personnel, construction workers, athletes and others, it has long been the practice to employ relatively rigid and relatively heavy protective shells of impact-resistant materials to protect the head of the wearer. Usually, such helmets have been provided with visors or face masks or shields which can be either permanently or selectively positioned in front of and at least partially covering the eyes or even the entire face of the wearer. Especially in the case of firefighters, helmets, it has also been the practice to include layers of heat resistant materials to the shell, thereby to protect the wearer from heat as well as from injuries by falling objects.
Because direct contact of the shell with the head of the wearer would be irritating, but even more for added protection from impact and/or ambient heat, such prior art headgear has incorporated means for holding the shell away from the head. Typically, such means have embodied a headband which encircles and embraces the head of the wearer while being resiliently in spaced relation from the outer shell.
To support the bulk of the weight of the entire headgear and to keep the upper portion of the outer shell spaced from the top of the wearer's head, a crown support assembly comprising a web of crisscrossing straps is conventionally affixed to the headband. To hold the straps in their desired crisscrossing configuration and to distribute the headgear weight over a larger area of the wearer's head, the crown support assembly typically also includes a crown pad associated with the straps adjacent the point of their intersection at or near the center of the headgear.
As is to be expected, even though somewhat lighter plastics and treated fabric reinforcements have replaced the metals that were originally used in such headgear, the mass required for an acceptable degree of protection from impact and/or ambient heat, has caused the headgear to be relatively heavy. Moreover, where additional accessory components, such as face shields, communication or breathing apparatus and the like, have been associated with the protective outer shells of the headgear, the overall weight of the headgear has been even further increased. Typically, in the case of the association of such additional components, the weight, and especially the added weight, is not uniformly distributed, with the result that one part, usually the front, of the headgear shell is considerably heavier than other portions of the shell.
While the weight of such headgear has itself been a problem from the standpoint of additional stress and fatigue factors, it has recently come to be recognized that, where the weight of the shell is unevenly distributed, such problems have become more acute. Additionally, it has been found that uneven weight distribution throughout the headgear as a whole has resulted in substantial interference with the balance and mobility of the wearer. All of these problems are even more pronounced where accessory devices are attached to or depend from the headgear.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide improved protective headgear.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such improved headgear characterized by an outer shell which addresses problems in which the weight of the headgear and of any accessory apparatus associated therewith is unevenly or non-uniformly distributed.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide such headgear wherein uneven weight distribution in the headgear does not subject the wearer to excessive stress or fatigue.
Other objects and advantages of this invention reside in the construction of the headgear, the method of assembly and the mode of use, as will become more apparent from the following description.